Category: Events

The City Center 5K photos are available.

The photos are located on this special site devoted to the Palm Beach Roadrunners City Center 5K Photos.

What are running pictures doing on a bike site?

Scott Maulsby, Palm Beach Road Runners race wrangler, works with Son Adam and is friends with Son Matt. They were talking one day about the upcoming race and got the bright idea that Matt and I would shoot the event, and that Matt would handle the logistics of creating a place to display the pictures and videos.

Race photography is a lucrative business

At least it is for some folks. Some photographers pay race organizers for the right to be the official photographer and make money selling photos to participants.

Since we weren’t sure we knew what we were doing, we said we’d do it for free.

[OK, we do have a place where you can give us tips, but it’s not required. Tips that come through Paypal or credit cards are highly desirable. Tips like, “If you run naked, it’s a good idea to slather sun screen on the normally white parts” may be true, but they are less desirable.]

Where are we going to shoot from?

Matt shot the pre-race set up, the mass start, the finish line and the awards ceremony. He also bolted a camera high on a light pole to shoot video of the start and end.

I set up at the first turn on Clematis to shoot all of the runners after they had spread out a bit. Then I started walking north on Flagler drive until I met the runners coming back to the finish.

In order to get something up quickly, I created the following slide show video and posted it to YouTube.

Video Slide show of all runners / walkers on Clematis

Everybody was photographed somewhere

For high quality stills that made up the video above, go to  Palm Beach Roadrunners City Center 5K Photos. There will be close to 1,500 photos of pre-race setup, runners along the course, volunteers, the finishers and the awards ceremony. We can practically guarantee that any participant will be in multiple shots.

What equipment did we use?

Matt used his Nikon D-700. I used my Nikon D-40 in sports mode. The video camera was a Canon FS100.

Go here to see the photos

The Palm Beach Road Runners and the Palm Beach Cancer Institute are sponsoring the City Center Grand Opening Inaugural 5K Run/Walk Saturday, April 18, 2009.

Starts and ends at City Center

The event will start at the new West Palm Beach City Center at the corner of Clematis St. and South Dixie Highway. Registration begins at 6 a.m. and the race begins at 7:15 am.

Here is the official brochure and registration form

It has all the information you’ll need for finding the start and finish line, parking and classifications.

Here is a video slide show of the first half of the course

The route passes interesting and sometimes historic buildings in downtown West Palm Beach, then turns to follow Flagler Drive with its view of the Intracoastal Waterway and Palm Beach.

The return follows the same course

Here are maps showing the route

PBRR City Center Race photos will be here

Son Matt and PB Road Runners Race Wrangler Scott Maulsby conspired to convince Palm Beach Bike Tours to photograph the Run / Walk and make the photos available by the night of the event (we hope).

Matt is going to shoot the start and finish line and I’m going to roam around looking for people and situations that are interesting.

We got our feet wet with event photography at the Rotary Club Lake Okeechobee Ride last month. It was fun, but the greater numbers will make this a lot bigger challenge.